Bring Me to Life
by Memphis Lupine
Summary: Married and parents, the last thing Yoh and Anna expect is involuntary possession. Told through the eyes of a daughter.
1. Prologue

Bring Me to Life: Prologue 

**-**

I was conceived in summer and born in winter, a concentrated centre for my parents' opposing natures.  Like all children I was to some degree a blend of those who gave me breathe, with features a mix of his and hers both borrowed and all my own.  I was given affection by my father and intellect my mother, as May of conception and January of birth; and in that duality I learned the silent, often unseen dance of marriage.

        Daddy was the one I was closest to when I was small, still tiny and weightless enough to be lifted with ease.  Perhaps it was the Electra skein that first absorbed me, the natural reaction of daughter to unconsciously adopt her father as her first love when she is a toddler; perhaps it was simply a response to the warmth I was given from him that Mother found difficult to lend.  I do know I loved him dearly, and was jealous of the completeness of his love for Mother, a deep-running current I could not tap into.

        Knowing Mother when I was a child, I puzzled, at times, on how or what Daddy saw to love in her.  She was an efficient mother, yes, and I had all the meals and lectures and moral lessons a small girl is entitled to learn; but it was strange for me to see other children hugging their mothers and boasting on what stories those glorious, soft-smiled women read at night to my companions.  These were things Daddy did: hugging and carefully watching over me, reading Western fairy tales and earthy Eastern legends.

        It was not until I was nearly seven that I first realized Mother loved me in her own quiet way; with the slow maturity and epiphanies of preadolescence I became aware of the silent kindness in her touch.  Small things sprang out, little details as her eyes followed Daddy just a bit, how her hand was always near mine though she did not touch, as if ready to spring to catch me.  I recognized each of these miniscule actions and flickers, anchoring them inside for fear of that which I had met once before.

        When I was young, and jealous of Mother, and loving of Daddy, I nearly lost my mother.  Uncle Manta – who was not my real uncle, but earned the title by right of honor – would often say, later, as I began to notice my mother, "Yoh almost had Anna's ghost following him around; who'd want her haunting you?"  And though I didn't understand why Daddy laughed and Mother scowled, I knew, deeply, that Uncle Manta was wrong:

        Daddy would never have lost her, but I?  I was almost alone.

-

Feedback:  Highly appreciated; complain away!  ^^

Continuity:  Future-set fic, world is still around, happy-happy-freakin'-joy-joy, and so forth.

Disclaimer:  I own nothing but the fic and the narrator/Asakura daughter.  Yay!  


	2. I

**Bring Me to Life: **I

-

        In my memory I am five again, and it is slowly drawing close to my sixth birthday.  Fall is still breathing, with the crisp chill of November everywhere, and I cannot remember the day it first began.  I remember how the cold air slivered through my supposedly invincible coat, and how Daddy hated even having to run the few feet from door to car at the mercies of the cold, but I remember mostly staring glumly at him as he waved cheerfully.  He was off to restock our supply of groceries, and would be gone for the better part of two hours; I sat on the steps in my coat and tried to pout hard enough for him to decide we could starve, and not go.  

        "Come in, Nemuri," Mother said behind me.  I turned reluctantly from my watchtower of the cement steps.  "You'll only get sick if you stay out here without wearing anything but your coat."  She gave me a stern look, maybe a scowl, which was nothing more than her eyes narrowing just a bit more and her lips thinning.  "Your father will be home soon enough."  And she glanced, briefly, after the faintest trail of exhaust invisible upon the road, before raising her eyebrow at me.

        I slunk inside, feeling rather like a punished criminal than a sulking child, and I felt pettily angry; had Daddy thought maybe I wanted to play with him today?  It was terribly unfair, it seemed, for me to be shunted aside so quickly, and I came close to throwing an irrational tantrum: I knew I was being bratty, but I wanted attention and I wanted the adoring praise all children expect constantly.  A part of me understood, while most of me was simply mad at both of them for not placing me on my ill-accustomed pedestal.

        Some self-preserving quality kept me from screaming and kicking about as I shook off my shoes.  "Mother," I said instead, "I'm hungry.  I want breakfast, please."  I obediently shed my coat when she crooked her eyebrow just so at me and dumped it on the floor.  "Pancakes," I added, my good mood returning, "with lots and lots of syrup, and um, chocolate chips!"  I tossed my arms in the air to show how much I wanted the chocolate chips, and trod aimlessly on the floor.

        "Nemuri," said Mother sharply.  I turned, shoulders slumping.  She pointed to the coat I had left half-draped over my shoes and raised her speaking eyebrow again.  "You should not leave your clothing on the floor.  Pick it up and put it where it should go."  With that said, she twisted on her heel, blonde hair shifting, and walked purposefully toward the kitchen.

        Struggling to hold my bulky coat in my arm, one of the sleeves dropping to rest across my foot, I stared hopefully after her.  "Can I still have pancakes?" I hollered, and tossed my coat over my shoulder.  "And chocolate chips in 'em?"  I bounced up on my toes, anxiously waiting to hear if she would respond.  "Please-please, I'm putting my coat up right now!"  Bargaining, I thought, was good.

        "If you put your coat up," her voice floated back to me from the mysteries of the kitchen, "and if you do it quickly, I won't make these pancakes on my own.  You will come back and help me make your breakfast.  Do you understand?"  A resounding clang emerged from the kitchen; a pot had dropped noisily, reverberating on the floor before she silenced it with a stomp and dark mutter.

        "Yes, Mother!" I cried to be heard over the angry pot.  "I'll be very, very quick, I promise!"  I beamed to myself and carefully checking that the coat was hanging properly over my shoulder, ran skidding the few feet to the closet.  "Almost done, Mother."  I picked the door open, excited, and stared up at the hangers far beyond my reach.  

        A dumpy cardboard box was briefly considered as being used for a step, but I glanced curiously inside it before moving to clamber on top of the deceptively firm-looking flaps.  Filled with photos, I knew if I stepped on it I would sink right inside of it or, worse, mar the pictures themselves; I was in no mood to tempt fate and my mother's wrath.  Glancing curiously at a worn picture of Miss Tamao blushing at a much younger version of my father, I shrugged and tossed my coat over the box.  I figured my negligence wouldn't come back to haunt me for another few hours.

        "I'm done!" I sang, and slammed the closet door shut with brutal pleasure.  Though I was not as close to Mother then as I was to Daddy, it was that lack of closeness making this rare opportunity a treat: I was, for whatever purpose, going to be able to spend most of an hour with Mother by myself.  No matter what the state of relationships in a family, nearly all young children welcome the chance to have a parent all to his or her self, able to draw the complete attention of that one adult and savor it.

        With my mother and I, it merely made it that much more flavorful.

        I wriggled into the kitchen, dancing on my toes eagerly.  "I'm ready, Mother," I said, forcing my feet to be still.  I clasped my hands behind my back to be the image of petulance.  "Can I help now?"  I shivered my shoulders once, gleefully, before stilling them.  

        She watched me evenly, and quickly scanning her eyes over the items assembled on the counter, bent to face me.  "Lift your arms, Nemuri."  I did so and she hooked her slender arms under mine, holding her palms to my back.  Mother's hugging me, I thought with some shock for a moment, and then she lifted with a swift movement, setting me firmly on the counter.  "Don't move; I'll fix up a bowl of batter for you to mix."  She busied herself, turning away from me as I scooted closer to the wall, sticking my knobby feet out from the light flannel of my pajamas.

        When I thought about it, unsure of whether I was upset or not, I decided I was not surprised by her not embracing me; Mother was a secure presence, one always seen but rarely felt.  Where Daddy would brush hands with her or toss me over his shoulder in a game, Mother preferred to watch us playing and keep her hands near his, close but not touching.  

        I watched her hands, suddenly thoughtful, at the slender lines and sleek gloss of her fingernails that shone of elegance.  Daddy's – I closed my eyes, nose scrunching as I remembered – hands were darker, larger, and blunt, uncultured and yet welcoming.  

        "Nemuri, don't fall asleep on the counter," I heard her say dryly and opened my eyes.  The bowl, batter still sporting clumps beneath its veneer, was gently edged to my hands and I looked at them briefly.  "Grip the spoon tightly and work it in a circle."  She carefully began working on a much larger bowl, as I stared at my chubby fingers with sudden, inarticulate fascination.  "Nemuri," she said sharply.  "Start mixing with the spoon.  See how I'm doing it?"

        Snapping away from watching my hands, I began slowly mimicking the quick, twisting motions of her wrist.  With the bowl cradled between my thighs and my other hand clasped tightly around the plastic rim, I nonetheless grunted with the effort.  "It's hard," I complained, and she leaned over, rapping her knuckles gently on my knee.  "Well it is, Mother!" I protested.  "I can't move the spoon at all!"  I bit my lip and squeezing my eyes into a squint, wished for a spirit of my own, preferably a famous French chef.  (Wishes, of course, rarely come true when one really wants them to, but I hardly liked thinking about that.)

        "Stir harder," she directed, merciless, and I wrinkled my nose at her.  She rapped my knee again and I moved my leg with a wide grin.  "Oh you're Yoh's child," spoke Mother wryly.  For my part, I was bewildered: of _course_ I was Daddy's child; the finer aspects of sarcasm had yet to sink into my brain.  "Motivation escapes you completely," and she lifted her bowl slightly from the counter, swirling one large lump around in a smooth formlessness.  "Now, keep stirring and try harder."

        "Yes, Mother," I sighed heavily.  Crossing my eyes at the thickness of the batter, I struggled for a few long, painful moments in desperate hopes of defeating it.  "Stupid spoon," I accused, and looked to Mother not for reassurance, but to gauge her expression: the tiniest degrees of her eyebrows, scowl, the thinness of her lips, could tell me if I was doing well.

        Mother was silent; this was not surprising, but was a different silence than I was used to, an oppressive one in place of a steady, somewhat detached quiet.  I could feel, over the progress of several seconds, the tiny hairs on my body slowly rising, from my legs to my neck as my skin prickled.  A ghost, I thought with eerie calmness, but not one like Amidamaru.  I was not frightened at the thought of a ghost, not with my heritage, but I felt uneasy nonetheless as the muscles in my arms tensed reflexively.

        Those beautiful, slender fingers had fallen to the edge of the counter, fingernails digging into the wood as the knuckles shone white through her skin.  "Are you all right Mother?"  I watched her fingers as my own clenched around the spoon.  "Do you want me to call Daddy?  I think he took his phone with him."  She was still silent, fingers tightening over the counter until I thought, horrified, they would snap; I drew my legs up toward my chest and clutched the spoon stuck in the batter, like cement.  "Mommy?"

        Mother lifted her head, dark blonde and dreamily slow.  Those bone-white knuckles receded into the usual healthy color as her fingers slid down to hang by her sides.  "Mommy?" she echoed quietly.  A shot of terror thrust bile up my throat briefly and I hung onto that spoon as if it were my very life.  "Calling for Mommy?"  And she glanced, unseeing, over the bowls and boxes, over the large half-filled bag of chocolate chips, before focusing on me.

        I'd long been accustomed to possession and the presence of otherworldly spirits; I knew Mother could call beings to her from the depths of heaven, and I was not innocent enough to not immediately think of a threat when I knew she was possessed.  What frightened me was not worrying about threats, but that I had seen nothing to suggest Mother had called it to her.  Nothing took control of Mother, nothing – not even Daddy – was silly enough to try; it was an immediate disintegration of my reality to see foreign glimmers in her eyes looking back at me and the blank, alien curiosity on her features.

        I whimpered, once, without meaning to, and shoved myself flat against the wall, trying to hide under the cabinets and cupping the bowl to my chest.

        Mother looked at me sadly.  "Aren't you lovely?" she said softly, and turning her palm up, lifted her hand toward me.  I tried to shrink back further.  "You have such pretty hair.  Do you think my darling will have pretty hair like this?"  Her fingers, suddenly unfamiliar, touched my hair, sliding to hold the strands as she cupped my cheek.  "Oh, so soft," she crooned, and I tried to jerk away, smacking the top of my head on the cabinets.  

        "Don't!" I snapped, while clasping hands over my head as I felt tears welling.  "Don't touch me, don't touch me; you aren't my mother, don't touch me!"  I waited desperately for her to snap at me, or say something sharp that would tell me my mother was herself again.  She studied me, still, with that kinetically wrong, empty face, a warping of features I knew with a foreign expression.  "Please, Mommy, don't let her touch me," I pleaded with the pooling darkness of her eyes.

        "Are you frightened?" she asked.  One of her hands moved back to my face, resting gently against my skin even as I shuddered; if she had rapped her knuckles, I would have wept happily.  "Why are you frightened?"

        It is impossible to explain to anyone why something can be overwhelmingly frightening.  Mother yelling or her slapping Daddy was something I regarded as normal, used to the detached affection of my mother as I was.  Sudden displays of affection, of any sort, even bemused questions as she stroked my hair, were terrifying to me.  How can one hope to impress the fear of shocking change?  If Daddy were to come home and snap at me to pack my toys in the chest, I would be bewildered and maybe even tearful; it was the same principle here, with Mother suddenly behaving innocent and tender to me, touching my face lovingly.  To hear her speak as a stranger, seeing the traces of ghosts in her eyes when she had not brought them forth, this was a sinister evil attacking my world.

        I began crying.

        "Don't cry," she begged, mournfully.  "You always cry, darling, and you know I hate it when you cry.  Haven't I told you again and again not to cry?"  A slow note of ugliness struck perversion into the delicate tone, an emotion I had never known before.  I would understand hate soon enough.

        "Mommy," I tried again, wanting to see her in those flat eyes.  "Why is it in you?  Make it go away, please, we're making pancakes and I can't with it here."  I babbled, feeling the fingernails I had thought so beautiful slowly beginning to tighten sharply in the skin around my ear.  Coldness struck me, a burst of air from her mouth as the pinpricks of pain started.  I stared, wide-eyed and wet-faced.

        "Stop crying," she hissed, the femininity gone and the acidic affection of Mother's voice still missing, replaced with that cloying hate.  Her eyes flickered and I could feel, instinctively, I had just seen Mother reflecting out at me.  Fingers digging in the side of my face, she shook my head once, twice.  "I told you to stop crying!" she ordered, disgusted almost.  "Stop it now!"

        I merely cried harder with the sharp pain as the nails broke skin and dragged; Mother slapped Daddy, scratched him sometimes, but he was never hurt by it, and she had never hurt _me_ before.  "Stop it!" I yelled.  And then a thought occurred to me, one that had me nearly swamped with the urge to giggle at my own forgetfulness.  I did giggle, once, and choked out, "Amidamaru, I need you!"  I closed my eyes briefly, content to hope Daddy's samurai would still be watching me in case of accident.

        One of the beliefs in my childhood was that Amidamaru was just short of a god, that what I could not squirm out of, what Mother could not beat into submission, what Daddy could not charm: that enigmatic 'what' could be destroyed or subdued swiftly by Amidamaru.  I had, at the age of two, stumbled into a deep pool formed by the rains in a pit, nearly drowning.  After Mother raged at Daddy for the better part of three hours (and after he gained several shallow scratches on his arm), I earned myself an ethereal guardian until they decided I was worldly enough to know better than stepping into deep pits filled with tepid rainwater.

        As the pain in my head intensified, her fingers shaking me painfully again, I wondered with some horror if Amidamaru was not watching.  Logically, there would be no reason for him to do so; Mother had been watching me and completely herself when we began mixing the batter.  

        "Stop crying!" she snarled and I heard Daddy whistling an off-key tune, calling, "Anna, I forgot the money!"

        A flicker of annoyance shone through the flat eyes again, her hand pulling back, and I grinned in spite of myself, even as the shallow cuts near my ear twinged.  Mother wouldn't like him forgetting the money at all.

        "Uh, I didn't mean to, though," he continued sheepishly, turning the corner to the kitchen and scratching at his dark hair.  "It was a perfectly honest mistake, and don't hit me!"  After squeezing his eyes shut in conditioned response, and Mother facing him with a remote expression, the ugliness fading in favor of bland curiosity again, he slowly opened an eye.  "Anna?" he asked, perplexed.  "Why aren't you hitting me?"

        "Hi, Daddy," I said when she continued staring and he glanced at both of us.  I was still crying, but relief sagged my shoulders and melted my bones so I slumped; by all rights I knew Mother was the dominant one in the relationship, but I believed wholeheartedly in the goodness of my father.  I would be fine.  "Um, Mother isn't Mother," I added, taking advantage of her distraction to inch away, dragging the spoon and bowl with me.  "She's kind of, of scary."

        "Mother's always scary," he replied absently.  "It's what makes her mean."  He took a careful step forward, and I noticed the unusual tension in his stance, knowing his arms were tightening under the obscurity of the coat.  Of course Daddy would sense the wrongness in the air; he looked at me again, flickering his eyes over the tiny red crescents near my hairline.  

        "Anna," he started again, moving forward another step as he adopted a loose stance, as if to call Amidamaru to him, "what's wrong?"  A third step, his eyes fixed on the awful emptiness of hers.  "Why is Nemuri bleeding?"  Daddy was facing her, and I tried to think why he hadn't called Amidamaru yet, why he was still letting that foreign thing be in her.

        "Who are you?" she wondered dreamily, and all the goosebumps on my body flattened when she blinked, then slapped him in a response as conditioned as his cowering.  "Yoh, where the hell are the groceries?" she demanded next, crossly, and grabbed the scarf around his neck in a move to choke him.  "If you tell me _you_ forgot the money again, _I'm_ going to slap you again.  Did you forget the money, Yoh?"

        "Yes," he replied without batting an eye, before realization crossed his face.  I winced as he clutched the other side of his face, reaching up to cover the tiny cuts on my face.  "Anna!" he protested.  "I didn't mean to forget the money; do you think I like being slapped?"  She raised an eyebrow, apparently deciding that question did not suffice an answer.  

        Daddy probed the red handprints, grimacing and glaring childishly at her, and then asked, curious and puzzled, "Anna, what were you doing to Nemuri?"  His tone was deceptively innocent, and I scrubbed at my face, embarrassed to have the tear tracks on my cheeks.  "Did you summon a spirit?" he continued in that same painfully calm voice, adopting a detached, lazy expression.  "We both felt," I nodded agreement, "something strange in here."  He hesitated, and I saw a thought crossing his face, knowing he was going to dismiss unwilling possession immediately.

        I, too, thought it silly; Mother was not the sort to be overwhelmed quickly by a spirit attacking her out of nowhere, and I decided she might have lost control of a being she had summoned.  That was nearly as unlikely, in hindsight, but was more comforting to think of than something violently overtaking her.

        "Nemuri," Mother said, looking at me sharply.  "What did you do to your face?"

-

        I rested giggling in my bed, scrubbing the back of my hand over my nose as Daddy grinned down at me.  "Cheater," I tried scowling, and sat up, picking at a loose string dangling form the sleeve of my pajama shirt.  "You're not supposed to cheat when you're tickling me."  I glared and he did his nervous shiver dance, the one I echoed constantly.  "Daddy!" I giggled again, and poked him in the shoulder as he smiled.

        "You look like your mother when you glare like that," he admitted.  "Lay back down in case she walks by; we can pretend you fell asleep."  He winked and scooted closer to my bed, glancing at the doorway and looking absurd as he did so; I didn't think any other fathers were afraid of the other mothers, and I thought my father was funny.  I snickered behind my hand and he gave me a silly expression, crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out.

        Plopping my head back on my pillow, I stretched my toes out and waggled my ankles slowly as I hesitated.  "Daddy?" I started quietly, playing with the string.  He looked at me under his sleepy eyelids.  "Is Mother okay?  Something – not right happened to her this morning."  I watched him miserably.  "She was really nice and then she started hurting me, and it wasn't like her hitting you.  It was mean." 

        Momentarily, he made a face and touched his cheek in distant recollection.  "I don't think her hurting anyone is nice," he said wryly.

        "No, that's not true," I argued earnestly, sitting up again.  I dropped my hands in my lap and looked at him seriously.  "Mother does it 'cause she loves you."  I nodded at his dubious look and tried again.  "But Daddy," my voice died for a moment as I remembered her cutting nails and shaking, "she wasn't Mother anymore."  I looked down at my fingers, at the chubby ends and square fingernails, the clumps of batter dried under the tips.  "She was scary, Daddy," I finished in a tiny voice.

        He brushed my hair back from my face, flicking his thumb over my nose and looking suddenly tired, his constant air of cheer fading for a moment.  Daddy recovered quickly, though, and grinning happily, leaned forward to kiss my forehead quickly.  "Don't worry about it, Nemuri," he ordered kindly.  "I'll take care of it!"  To prove his point, he rolled to his feet and flexed his arm once, pathetically.  "Or," he continued without missing a beat, "Amidamaru will take care of it."

        Suitably cheered, I laughed and fluffed the blanket over my chest, wriggling back down and turning on my side to watch him leave.  "Good night, Daddy," I called, and he waved dismissively.  "I love you!"  I squinted and spotted Amidamaru lurking in the hallway, barely visible if I looked for him in the shadows; he was peering toward my room.  "Amidamaru!" I yelled, propping myself up on my elbows and waving.  "I love you, too!"  Grinning delightedly at his pleased expression, I hooked my arm over the pillow and closing my eyes, rested my head on my arm.

-

Notes:  Next chapter will be longer.  I hope.  And more in character!  With Yoh/Anna.

Feedback:  On toast, please.

Disclaimer:  I still do not own any of the characters, of which more will be appearing soon.  I promise!  ^^


	3. II

**Bring Me to Life: II**

**-**

I had bewildering dreams that night: half-shadowed glimpses into a yawning confusion.  It was the sort of dream not easily classified as nightmare, as no monsters or obvious perversions of life were seen, nothing more than a stretching winter scene.  Fragile ice decorated the one tree in the centre of the field (or what I assumed was the centre, from my perspective), slender, knobbed icicles shivering along the brittle black sticks twining out from the trunk.  Whispers of people passing me made me uneasy, as though I could hear spirits but not see them.  Reaching out to grab onto the tree, clasp it for support, I slid through it: the tree was, in accordance with the reality of dreams, intangible.  Falling through the tree, I plunged into an iced river that sprang from the ground, twisting unendingly through the snow banks.  

        Ice snapped under my slender weight and I snarled my fingers in the tree roots as the trunk leaned toward me.  Shock presented itself with the textures cutting into my bare hands, suddenly aware of the freezing chill of the water; I had never before had a dream wherein I could feel pain, anything tangible that could serve to root imagination with reality.  Catching the largest root again with my weakened grip, I tried to drag myself up even as my skin crawled from both the coldness and the realization that I was feeling the cold.  But my numbing fingers began to slip, tired; and the root bucked under my tiny chubby hands, twisting free as the bark scraped over my palms.

        "No," I moaned, catching my fingernails in the ridges.  "No, I'm scared – I don't want to, please."  The root, as if mocking my plea, rippled under my rapidly tiring grip, shifting shape to an oily curl smooth and unblemished.  "I don't want to fall, please don't let me," I continued desperately, kicking my feet frantically in the water.  "I'm scared of the water, I can't fall in, I won't come up, I won't come up; I won't I won't I'll stay down!"  In the water, I thought as the coldness spread to my belly; if I let go, if it makes me let go, I won't be able to come up.

        I knew with certainty that I would die, I would plummet into an endless (pit of dirty rainwater) river of immeasurably chill water and drown, unseen and unheard by anyone but the whispering voices.  No one was here to save me, as the tree slowly eased the root out of my right hand, leaving me to claw at the snow as I held on with my left; I couldn't feel Amidamaru and knew he would not be able to warn anyone (as the dream swerved further and further into my grasp of reality), felt with terror that this time Daddy would not be able to save me.

        When I was two years in age, I was curious about the sheet of smudged glass just out of sight of our family home.  I leaned over, saw my face blinking owlishly back at me with the same round features, and was promptly fascinated.  Reaching over, crouching and leaning forward on my toes as my cracked sneakers protested, I tried to touch the hand echoed in the glass; fingers touched, breaking the surface as my hand merged with my tepid reflections, and then I screamed, tumbling headfirst into the water.  Up and down reversed gleefully as I tried to recover my balance underwater, frightened and scrabbling slowly about, and as I tried madly to reclaim the surface, Amidamaru had thankfully seen me fall into the pit.

        I remembered as the river tugged at my legs and the root tried to fight me off, that Daddy had plunged his long arms into the water, caught me by my arms and pulled me out.  Crying and confused, I had burrowed toward him, hiding my face in his shirt and whimpering raggedly; he had sighed heavily, then laughed (a jittery laugh, I would realize later) and restored my confidence.  "Whew," he sighed, and nodded with relief at Amidamaru, "you scared me half out of my mind.  I don't want my daughter as a ghost!  And," Daddy leaned back with a heavy exhale, like that of a marathon sprinter after the Olympics, "you know I only want excitement once a week; quota's been filled.  No more excitement!"  He fell to the ground with an exhausted huff and, shrieking, I joined him.

        "Daddy?" I asked weakly as the snow crumbled under my right hand.  "Daddy, I'm scared – I'm really scared, Daddy."  I sobbed, once, as the root ripped from my hand and, too worn to scream, I slipped quietly to the river.

-

        In contrast with the dream, my room felt overwhelmingly warm though the November air was creeping in.  The sudden shift in temperatures, from imagined to real, was enough to bewilder and irritate my mind; I shoved my blanket off and stumbled to stand on my futon, toes curling in the folds of the cloth.  As though to dispel the sensation of strong heat from my flannel pajamas, I did an awkward hopping dance to burn adrenaline and fidgeting excitement, shaking my arms.  I knew there were sticky tear tracks on my cheeks, rapidly drying and drawing the skin taut with a filmy glaze, and at a brief spark of remembered fear, I tossed my head around in a mockery of giddiness.  

        A choked whisper of something from my lips, and the shuffle of the cloth slowed gradually as my paces grew less frenetic and, grounded back in reality, I stopped.  My shoulders slumped and I poked at the blanket with my foot.  "I'm scared, Daddy," I repeated, softly, and swallowed thickly before stiffening my back and glowering at the wall.  I spat, "Stupid Nemuri, it's just a dream; you're not supposed to act like a baby.  Just a dream, and a stupid one."  My resolve wilted toward the end, with my voice slipping into a timid whisper as I wrapped my arms around my front, flannel wrinkling up with the movement.  

        "But I'm still scared," I whimpered, and plopped directly onto my rear, legs sprawling before me, and tears coming anew.  "I'm scared of the water; I hate it, _hate_ the water."  I kicked my foot out angrily, and wiped at my face with the side of my palm.  In the dark, as I tried to brush away the tears and felt frustrated at myself, I wanted the night to pass and reveal the morning light; in the morning, everything would be normal again: Mother would still be calm and cold, and Daddy would be home today to play with me, and Uncle Manta was coming over (I didn't know why, but assumed it was something boring and grown-up).  Amidamaru would coddle and worry over me, and the t.v. would be on, blaring, even though no one would be watching it.

        "Amidamaru?" I asked, as the thought struck me.  What if Mother and Daddy had decided I was ready to be unsupervised?  "Can I talk to you?"  I crossed my legs and dropped my hands to rest hopefully on my ankles.  "I mean, if you're listening, 'cause I don't wanna bother you."  Wrinkling my nose, I leaned forward in the dark and squinted into the shadows of the hall stretching past my room.  "Please?" I added, as an afterthought.

        Silence for a long moment, the sort that stretches into a sleepy oblivion; the sort where as soon as one's eyes begin to drift shut, more out of a warm numbness than any boredom or strong urge to sleep, the thing (or person) asked for appears.  In this case, it was a swirl of mist as my eyes grew lidded, quickly shifting into the familiar important adornment of the samurai.  "Oh," I said after a moment as he stared, eyebrows lifted expectantly.  "Hi."

        He looked at me with disgruntled affection.  "Mistress Nemuri," spoke Amidamaru gravely, "are you in any pain or, perhaps, danger?  Have you felt anything troubling approaching that might merit my speaking to your father?"  Mother had her quelling looks, sharp and nearly daggers in their warning, and Daddy had thin-lipped glares that were unsettling, but Amidamaru had this entirely belittling look that could make me feel like an insignificant speck; considering he was usually quite a fun, excitable ghost, it was strange that he should be so capable of squashing any "foolishness," as Mother had put it succinctly once (and Daddy, I think, agreed to keep her from smacking the back of his head again).

        Feeling silly, I admitted sheepishly, lowering my chin to my chest, "Not exactly, Amidamaru."  Then, hopefully, I perked up and smiled weakly, "Um, I had a nightmare?"  I picked at the string dangling from my sleeve absently.

        His expression softened enough for me to look up; I realized, albeit lately, that he had been teasing me.  "Ah, nightmares," he nodded solemnly.  "Most dangerous things for a young child; when I myself had nightmares, I often spoke to someone else.  If you would like to, I might be able to assist you, Mistress Nemuri, in conquering this evil."  He gave me a sturdy look tinged with faint hope, and I knew he wanted to help as he might be able to – if I were to fall head over heels into another pit of water, guardian or no he wouldn't be able to haul me out himself.

        I grabbed at my toes, frowning in consideration.  "Well," I said after a moment, "it didn't really feel like a nightmare.  There weren't any monsters or people or scary things at all."  Except, I thought grimly, for the river, but who was afraid of water?  I kept it to myself and forged on.  "But it did," I faltered, "feel weird and I was kind of scared anyway."

        Amidamaru replied firmly, "There are many things that are frightening other than that which you see."  He paused a moment to allow my brain time to unravel his sentence, and a grim shadow crossed his long face in memory.

        "You have to see something to be afraid of it!" I protested quickly, thinking of every horror movie Daddy, Amidamaru, and I had watched as Mother darkly prophesied sleepless nights to follow.  "Like in that movie, with the hand that crawled around," I jerked my wrist in illustration, writhing slightly, "and choked you in your sleep?  Nobody was scared of it 'til they saw it, and then it was always too late."

        He opened his mouth to retort, then paused to grimace with thought, grasping his chin reflectively.  "Yes, such was the case in that particular movie, but it is not well to confuse the unreal with the real."  A sage expression and nod, and I began to miss the Amidamaru who liked playing with me (as well as he could).  "Many people are frightened by spirits as they cannot see them," he continued, "and it is a matter that is widespread: what isn't seen is often more frightening than what it is."

        I felt irritable and curled my toes sharply in my fingers, before releasing my feet.  "It didn't mean anything anyway," I snapped hotly, crossing my arms tightly around my chest.  "It was only a stupid dream, it's not like you have to make a big deal out of it.  Besides, you haven't had dreams or nightmares in forever."  My finish was rude and calculated; I knew he had by way of death lost even that simple detail.  Childish cruelty led me to throw it in the face of the spirit I had long held in light of an older brother, of a most unusual sort.

        "That is true," his eyes narrowed and I glanced immediately to the ground; he concluded stiffly, "I am still not as wise on shamans as I might, but I have met those who had portents of what was to come.  You are of divining blood.  Maybe you sense darkness coming?" he prodded gently.  

        He had a troubled expression when I again looked up at him.  "Something kept me from coming to you and Lady Anna when you asked me to come," he said worriedly.  "A strange sensation, like being pulled underwater by something most powerful."

        I rested my head on my chest and bit my lip sharply, feeling the swell of tiny beading copper in my mouth; crying had already taken its toll on me, and I did not want to do so again.  

-

        I woke in the morning to silence, an eerie shift from the usual chaos of the morning in my family's house; it was rare for the house to be empty but for my immediate family.  The past few mornings I had also pulled from sleep to be disoriented: I could not understand where Miss Tamao had gone, why Grandmother and Grandfather were off to their respective journeys.  In a matter of five months I had assumed they were part of my life and would be living with us, and no matter how many times Mother had sharply explained it, I still did not understand.

        But usually sounds could be still discerned; Daddy singing loudly in the kitchen to old tapes and compact discs, as Mother growled at him to turn the music down was the ritual.  Sleep faded gradually as I grew uncomfortably aware of nothing, holding my breath and opening my eyes as if doing so would restore sound.  I could think of nothing that might dissuade my parents from their morning traditions and so wondered fearfully where they were.

        It took several minutes for me, in the aftermath of a confusing dream before I woke, to screw up the courage to sit up.  When I did so it was slowly, wary without knowing why and feeling anxious.  I clasped my hands tightly around the tangled, wrinkled cloth of my futon's blanket and held myself poised.  Swallowing, I was acutely aware of the knot in my throat shifting, of the muscles in my arm tensing lightly and relaxing as it passed.  My body was carefully taut, waiting for the delicacies of remembered noise, and a natural creak in the floor was like a gunshot.

        Jumping slightly, I checked my room hurriedly for Amidamaru and upon finding no trace of his presence I sucked in a deep breath.  I was unsure why my heartbeat seemed strangely awkward, and exhaled a loud huff of air.  Peculiar nightmares, a lack of comforting sound (I placed so much importance on the faint sounds I had long awoken to), and the scratches on the side of my head stinging lightly beneath the band-aids: twisting together, they filled me with worry.  I was pinned into stillness by the fear and my arms trembled under my weight, fingers biting deeply in my futon.  Finally, with some effort, I was able to carefully draw up to my feet, stepping tentatively toward my bedroom door.

        A terrible thought clawed at my mind then: _what if,_ it whispered, _the thing in Mother is hurting Daddy, just like it hurt you yesterday?_

        Pushing aside the fear as best I could, I clutched my hands firmly around the doorway and gingerly poked my head out in the hall; turning it slightly, I caught a glimpse of a face hovering beside mine and instinctively screamed.  Clumsily, I tumbled over, hitting my leg on the doorway and collapsing to the ground as I tried to recover my breath.  My heart trilled anxiously in my chest, drumming swiftly as I gasped repeatedly, clutching at my leg.

        The other face had also made a startled sound and the figure – a small man perhaps three inches taller than me – took a perfunctory step back, out of reflex.  "Nemuri," he gasped at me, holding a massive tome to his chest.  "Please don't – scream like that."  He gave me a look posed between stern and pleading.

        "Uncle Manta," I wheezed on the floor, still clutching at my leg almost painfully.  "I'm," I paused and closed my eyes, breathing in.  "I'm really sorry," I finished meekly, and slowly unclamped my hands from my leg.  "I didn't mean to scream.  I'm sorry."  Stumbling to my feet, I looked apologetically at him, hooking my hands together and staring hard at the floor.

        "Just don't do the screaming thing," he said, face stressed, "please.  You almost gave me a heart attack!"  He had a slightly trite expression and I slouched my shoulders, guiltily.

        "I didn't mean to," I apologized and glanced up quickly, feeling a bubble of excitement.  "Do you know where Daddy is, then?" I asked eagerly.  "Or Mother?  I couldn't hear them, and they must've let you in.  Is she okay now?"  I nearly bounced on my toes, perhaps thinking to see if Mother was behind him though as he was hardly any taller than I, it would have been unnecessary.  "Mother was sort of scary yesterday," I explained as he glanced down at me a bit.  "She didn't act like herself when we were making breakfast."  

        Uncle Manta nodded seriously, and joggled the tome he held, somehow keeping it in his grip (and not dropping it on my head, thereby crushing me flat).  "I know," he answered briefly.  "Your mother asked me to find you and bring you to the kitchen."  The sour look on his face suggested it had not been willing on his part; I took no personal offense.

       "Why didn't she just ask Daddy?" I asked, curious.  A small patch of skin on the back of my neck began prickling, distantly.  Ignoring it, I added conspiratorially, grinning, "Mother always makes him do things for her.  It's really funny."

        Uncle Manta gave me a strange look.  "It's comforting to be reminded you're Anna's daughter," he said sardonically.  "Now, come on, this," he joggled the tome again, "is heavy, and I'd like to try and get to the bottom of this all as quickly as possible."  The slightly fanatical glint in his eyes resigned me to his being once again in his solving mode, the one determined to complete a problem swiftly or to at least glean as much knowledge from said problem as he could.

        "Okay," I sighed despondently, and obediently trailed after him; it took little time to arrive in the kitchen, where Mother was chopping a large knife through a carrot.  Her face was irritated as she sliced the orange vegetable and resolutely ignored Daddy singing loudly an inch or so from her ear.  I considered warning Daddy that Mother did not look very happy about it, and decided by the way he was leaning a bit away from her, he already knew.

        I never understood why Daddy liked teasing Mother so much, especially when she usually hit the back of his head; sometimes I thought maybe that was how they told each other 'I love you,' which made me think my family was irreversibly fractured, considering most of my friends had parents that would just _say_ 'I love you.'

        "Lord Yoh," I heard Amidamaru say and glanced to find him lurking by the toaster in his small ball form, face distorted in a stoic glower.  "Lord Manta has brought your daughter."  I caught the uneasy expression that flitted over his tiny face and understood it: Mother was glaring sharply at Daddy.

        Daddy, thankfully, stopped singing and straightened from teasing Mother.  "Nemuri," he said cheerfully.  "You're almost as tall as Manta, aren't you?"  Mother snorted, amused, and Uncle Manta looked with an air of surliness at her.  "Come on, I'll help you up to the counter."  Daddy jerked his head slightly, dark brown hair shifting around his swarthy face and smile as sunny as it always remained in my memory.  

        I stepped forward and hesitated, unable to keep from nervously glancing at my mother and the spot near the sink where I had sat when she changed.  "Daddy?" I asked in a tiny voice.  "Do I – do I have to?"  I studiously avoided meeting Mother's cool gaze, though I could nearly sense disappointment and something else about her – faint sadness, maybe.

        "Well, uh," Daddy squinted helplessly and scratched at his hair, "I'm not really sure you absolutely have to."  He shuffled his foot slightly and, in a baggy white t-shirt and worn jeans, was the image of comedic solemnity with his serious expression.  "I mean, it seemed like a good idea, right, Anna?"  Mother turned and raised her eyebrow at him; he grinned sheepishly at her.  "That is, uh, I think Manta could explain it.  Right?"  Even I could not dare compete with the cheesy grin he aimed at my uncle, and Mother rolled her amber eyes tellingly.

        "Most crime scenes," Uncle Manta began explaining promptly, and I shuddered, once, at his choice of words, "have witnesses; one of the tactics used to jumpstart details in the mind of a witness is to stage a loose reenactment of what happened, based on someone else's account or what the witness remembers."  He staggered to the counter and shoved the book on it with some effort, turning around to stare seriously at us all.  "If a detail is wrong, it may cause the witness to recall it correctly."

        "That!" said Daddy triumphantly, pointing at Uncle Manta with an aura of victory.  "And since none of us were present except for Anna and Nemuri, we need you," he looked at me and smiled gently, "to help us by doing everything you can remember.  If you can remember anything about what happened to your mother, it'd be perfect."  I wanted to cry, seeing Mother and the counter and Daddy smiling so carefully at me.

        "Nemuri," Mother said.  I looked at her, as did the others; she raised her eyebrow eloquently.  "Nemuri," she continued coolly, "get over here right now.  I am not going to hurt you, and this is very important."  Her stony expression did not waver, nor did her wrist as she scraped the useless end pieces of the cutting board with the knife.  "I have no memory of what happened yesterday morn, which leaves you and Amidamaru.  And," her eyes flitted toward him, as he looked downcast and rather guilty (though I was not sure why), "Amidamaru has said he was not able to enter the kitchen at the time."

        After a moment, as I nearly shriveled under the pressure of their gazes, my feet began shuffling forward rather against my will; I still cannot understand why I began to walk to the counter when I most certainly did not wish to.  The distance was quickly crossed though it felt immeasurably long, and to steel my nerves for those hideously drawn out seconds, I watched Daddy and Mother both: Daddy's grin, infectious and encouraging with its lackadaisical cheer; Mother's savagely serene face, somehow conveying a feeling of factual belief without sentimentality.  

        "Okay," I barely managed a whisper, holding my arms out like uneven rods.  "Okay, Daddy."

        He scooped me up, warmer than Mother, and squeezed me in a brief mid-air hug.  "It's okay, Nemuri," he said quietly, effortlessly.  "You don't have to be so glum all the time."  With a laugh, he bounced me up once, and as I giggled in reflex, swung me to the counter.  "Nothing to it," he said breezily and winked, lightly; Mother made her amused snorting sound again as Uncle Manta flipped the book open with an audible bang.

        "Same position, Mistress Nemuri," Amidamaru reminded me.  "Where did you sit yester-morn?"  I sighed grievously, my sense of humor still stubbornly clinging to me, and scooted backward on the counter until I carefully positioned myself beside the sink.

        "Start remembering," Mother said brusquely and with a smile I turned to her, the smile slowly dwindling as the hairs began rising from my neck to my arms.  

        Those regal amber eyes of hers – cold, enigmatic, and somehow kind – were emptying before me, a blank distance settling within.

-

Notes:  I know it doesn't seem like the plot was moved at all…but it really did advance!  Next chapter will be a bit longer (and more plot-heavy), and I'll follow that with a gratuitous Yoh/Anna interlude.  Because I love you.  ;|)

Feedback:  Cover it with chocolate and I shall give you endless affection.

Disclaimer:  Takei Hiroyuki (Keeper of the Way of Writing Kickass Shonen Manga Females) owns all.  Surprisingly, I don't begrudge him that.

Thanks:  Kirax105, Baka-Cupid, Moonwind, cirquemouse1, Lacewood (*faints*), Luna Carta, and Briememory.  A thousand thank-yous!  (And I hope you're still enjoying it.)****


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